Review of KPop Demon Hunters, directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

I remember when I reached around the one hundred mark I was getting discouraged and decided I needed a few days for a brain break. I took a step back then and thought long and hard about what I wanted to do, and realized I was in the financial privilege at that moment when I could just watch a few movies a couple of days in a row and not worry about that destroying my life financially.

On that note, Netflix has been one of my best friends because of how easy it is to access content around the world. Korea has been my home base for a while now when it comes to entertainment, as I speak a good amount of Korean, lived in both Seoul and Busan, and did my master’s thesis on Korean women’s literature from the colonial period. It’s been an area I’ve always had an interest in, stepped away until graduate school, and have been thrust back into lately.

Anyway, I didn’t plan on watching KPop Demon Hunters at first because I thought it looked cringe. Big mistake looking back on that, but when I started seeing the hype online, I decided I needed to take a break from the job applications and actually watch this. And man, I was impressed.

Let’s get into the review before I spoil my thoughts too much!

Three girls, who hunt demons and are in a K-pop idol group, find a new threat: a demon boy group.

This film opens up with some context for what’s about to happen: in this historical version of Korea, demons have are active and capturing the souls of living human beings in order to sustain their demon king: Gwi-Ma. As this unfolded throughout history, there were three women who always emerge ready to stop them as demon hunters. It’s through their singing, though, that they are able to stop demons from completely entering the human world.

The latest incarnations of these three women are Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, and it so happens that they’re actual K-pop idols in a group called HUNTR/X. They’re pretty popular and just wrapped up a world tour, slaying demons along the way to make sure people are safe.

As this happens, Gwi-Ma, in the demon world, is upset because he wants more humans to feast on. One demon is up to the challenge: Jinu. He says he can get together a demon K-pop boy band to steal the girls’ fans, weaken the barrier they set up, and get more souls. Gwi-Ma agrees, and Jinu requests that if he’s successful, all of his human memories are wiped away.

While Mira and Zoey are prepared to relax after the grind of the tour, Rumi, who’s hiding that she’s losing her voice because she’s part demon, announces the promos for their next single “Golden.” Although they’re tired, the girls start the grind all over again of promoting. The new demon boy band, Saja Boys, promotes on the street, enraging the girls as they just ran into these seemingly rude boys, and they see that they’re demons.

They decide to take out the Saja Boys on a weekly promotion show for idols, but are caught and forced to interact with them on-camera instead. The Saja Boys then run away and the girls chase them, leading to a scuffle inside of a Korean bathhouse. Jinu then accidentally finds out Rumi is part-demon, and figures out that her bandmates don’t know.

He sends her a message (which is such a cute reference to Korean mythology) to meet him, and he tells her his story. Turns out he sold his soul to Gwi-Ma for a beautiful voice to save his mother and sister from poverty, but the situation worsened after he was taken to the demon realm and they were left destitute. That’s why he wants to erase his memories: he feels guilty about what he did. Gwi-Ma also keeps the demons captive in some ways to work for him.

After this night, the fight continues onward. The Saja Boys become more popular, with their fans’ souls being consumed by Gwi-Ma, and the girls plan a revenge song to diss the Saja Boys. Rumi decides to help Jinu and says that if he helps HUNTR/X, he will never have to go back to the demon realm.

The barrier continues to weaken, and Mira confronts Rumi and says they need to do something instead of writing a song. Jinu finds that after singing with Rumi, he no longer hears Gwi-Ma, but Gwi-Ma summons him anyways, exposes to us that Jinu chased fame over his family, and threatens Jinu to work for him.

The Idol Awards Ceremy is next, and HUNTR/X performs after the Saja Boys don’t show up. But when Rumi is tricked into performing “Takedown” and shows her demon marks, Mira and Zoey, who were replaced by demons on stage, are horrified that Rumi never told them about this or Jinu. Jinu is then coerced by Rumi to confess that he abandoned his family, but then things really get worse.

Gwi-Ma hypnotizes the audience, Zoey, and Mira, forcing them to attend the Saja Boys’ performance. Rumi goes to her foster mother to beg for death, but she refuses to do so. Rumi then stops the Saja Boys performance by debuting a new song, leaving Zoey and Mira capable of fighting back. Jinu then sacrifices himself so Rumi can be safe, and HUNTR/X defeat the Saja Boys and Gwi-Ma.

The movie ends with Rumi accepting who she really is, making amends, and continuing her work as an idol.

Overall Thoughts

I have to say upfront: I had no idea Ahn Hyo-seop spoke English or was Canadian before this, despite somehow not connecting the dots after seeing him in Business Proposal speaking English. I was so confused for half of the movie as to why I recognize Jinu’s voice, and then I put two and two together right before I googled it to confirm whether I was right or not.

Ahn aside, I really enjoyed this movie a lot, which was incredibly unexpected. There are so many little references here and there that make this so Korean, which was refreshing from an English-language movies. From the history to depiction of modern Korea and its food/culture, this was really rooted in what makes Korea so special.

The music was also fantastic throughout this. Songs in musical movies tend not to strike for me, but these landed well and fit perfectly. Like I actually loved “Golden” and could see myself listening to that casually here and there.

At the same time, there were some downsides. This was very much a movie about Rumi, and we don’t get as much about her bandmates when I wanted to know more about them. I’d be totally down if they had turned this into a television series, although I doubt they will at this point considering how long it took to make this movie alone.

I also think that this could have benefitted from an extra thirty minutes or so, but I’m not mad at the length in general. It was a solid movie despite its brevity.

I say go watch this if you’re interested and haven’t already seen it. Movies are really meant to be seen and experienced, not read about on the Internet.

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